In the fall, I bought a ten-speed bike and began touring the city. Each day I set out in a different direction and increased the distance traveled. Sometimes I would pedal west on 20th Street until I hit Guerrero, then head north to Market Street. From there, it was a straight run through Union Square and the financial district out to the San Francisco Bay. Or, on other occasions, I cut off at Van Ness Avenue and biked the four miles straight out to Fisherman's Wharf. At a wooden structure no bigger than an outhouse, tourists queued up all day long to buy excursion tickets - hour-long boat trips into the harbor to view the prison at Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge. My stamina was improving every day and, if I had trouble making the hills, I walked the bike up from where my legs gave out and coast down the far side.
After one such trip, I got back to the Bay View Motel shortly before dusk and chained my bike to the metal railing outside the main office. Entering the lobby, it was clear something was wrong. A grim-faced Mr. Chowdhary sat on a stool behind the counter sorting through a folder of bills. Terry was at the far end of the counter, a magazine and small paper bag of pistachio nuts in front of her. She looked no happier than her father and neither bothered to glance up when I appeared.
“How's business?”
“Not good. Hardly any guests,” Mr. Chowdhary said. Terry slid out from behind the counter, leaving the magazine but taking the nuts.
A brooding hard-edged melancholy swept over his face as he watched the traffic pass out in the street. “The last guest to check into the motel was a young woman attending a trade show for semiconductors. I asked how business was and she replied, 'We did thirteen million last year.'” Mr. Chowdhary stared blankly at the far wall. “I don’t even know what semiconductors are, but a woman half my age can sell thirteen million dollars worth.”
“You’re considering a midlife career change?” I was trying to make light of the situation but he chose not to see the humor. Instead, Mr. Chowdhary smiled sheepishly, like a man who discovers that society and its unruly stepchild, technology, have surged off, helter skelter, in a new direction.“I met Gandhi,” he said abruptly, steering the conversation off in a new direction; his thoughts seemed fragmented, uncharacteristically disjointed. “Gandhi and his goat. My father and I marched with him from Ahmadabad to the Arabian Sea; that was in nineteen thirty during the struggle for independence. I was only a little boy then - no more than eight years old.”
“I must tell you that, initially, the goat made more of an impression on me than the Mahatma. It was only after I came to America that I realized the man was far more important than the silly goat.” He pushed the ledger book to one side and toyed uncertainly with the fountain pen. “Sometimes it seems I’ve spent my life chasing after Gandhi's goat.” “My daughter,” Mr. Chowdhary changed the subject abruptly, “You can’t imagine the grief she causes me!”
“I don't really feel comfortable -”
“There was an untimely and rather grotesque death in the family,” Mr. Chowdhary blurted, ignoring my protest. “A relative on my wife’s side. He was not such a nice man. A boorish oaf, you might say. But still, when a man dies and under such bizarre circumstances, one tends to overlook his faults.”
“It's not really necessary -"
“So anyway,” Mr. Chowdhary rushed ahead with his story, “My wife stopped by the funeral parlor earlier to pay her respects, while I went in the afternoon with my daughter.” The phone rang, an inquiry about lodging. Mr. Chowdhary gave the caller the rates and hung up. “Where was I?”
“Something about a funeral.”
“Not a funeral, a wake,” Mr. Chowdhary corrected. “At the wake, a friend of the family says, 'Such a nice person. So sorry for your loss.' And what does my heartless daughter say?” Mr. Chowdhary's voice was rising both in pitch and emotional intensity. “Can you possibly imagine?”
I stared at the man, who, slouching forward, placed a hand over his eyes. It was unclear whether he had either the desire or will to proceed with his story.
Terry returned and was leaning against the door jamb fishing pistachio nuts from the brown, paper bag. “What I said,” She picked up the thread of her father's narrative while continuing to munch nuts, “was that the relative in question was a nasty drunk and a bully, who didn't deserve a fancy wake much less anybody's sympathy.”
Dead silence. With my only avenue of escape - except for the windows - blocked, I could only look back and forth between Mr. Chowdhary and his daughter. “You heard with your own ears! I am disgraced by such a rude child!”
Terry was cracking the last of the pistachios, fishing the whole nuts out from among the empty shells at the bottom of the bag. “Isn't it so, Father, Uncle Sukamar was a drunk and a violent bully?”
“Yes, of course,” Mr. Chowdhary spoke immediately without giving the question any deep consideration. “His vices were common knowledge, some would say legendary. But is this any way to treat the dead?”
Sukamar. Where had I heard that name before? Of course! The foul-mouthed fat man who badgered me mercilessly the afternoon of the christening. “If you don't mind my asking, how did your uncle die?”
“Boiled alive,” Terry replied.
Mr. Chowdhary frowned disapprovingly at his daughter. “A horrible accident! He'd had too much to drink and fell asleep in the Jacuzzi. Thirty-six hours. It was not a pretty sight when they found the poor man.”
Asleep in the Jacuzzi. I tried to imagine Uncle Sukamar lying in a tub of swirling, super-heated water, a gin fizz clutched in either hand - his sightless eyes glazed over, the swollen tongue protruding obscenely between fleshy lips. Boiled alive. Yes, God was fair and equitable!
The pistachio nuts gone, Terry crumpled the bag into a tight ball and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. “I won't apologize and I have only one regret,” she said, “which is that I accompanied you to the foolish wake in the first place.” With that, she wandered out into the warm night, leaving us to our own, private reflections.